


Flip the Coin

by Morefiercethanfire



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: AU, Dark, Gen, Gives ME2 the finger
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-08-13 06:49:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7966702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morefiercethanfire/pseuds/Morefiercethanfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Collectors reach Shepard's corpse first, how is Cerebus forced to react? When Shepard wakes up in an entirely new body, shit gets real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Harbinger is not a fool. It saw the chaos of the Leviathans' rule, and it devised a solution that would endure for all time. And in that time, it has seen the cycles turn on and on, while countless empires die beneath its claws. 

 

Some races resist to the end, with their last warrior spitting defiance at the Reapers with their dying breaths. Some worship them as gods and submit without much of a fight at all.

 

Yet there is a constant that always makes itself known sooner or later. 

 

Always there arises the Champion. A true exemplar of their race’s military power that commands respect and power amongst the organics of the cycle. A person with an undeniable charisma that makes others follow them into chaos without question. They emerge victorious from traps and ploys that would’ve killed their betters, and defy the Reapers to the very end. Those like  _ her _ . 

 

This...Commander Shepard.

 

Cast in the bloody crucible of her predecessors and a model for those that will inevitably come after.

 

But even in the eternal constant of the cycles and the Champion, some things can be  _ altered _ . For even though Harbinger is eternal and unkillable, dedicated to it’s task of saving the organics from themselves, it still feels. 

 

And, despite all reason and beyond any possible explanation, it is  _ bored _ .

 

The cycles grind on, but there is never any true change. Never any chance of moving beyond them. Harbinger takes no pride or joy in what it does, and it examines each Harvest as it passes, looking for another piece to a true solution. Not this..stopgap.

 

But here, here there is an opportunity. The Commander has been targeted and a ship of pawns remaining from the last cycle has been sent to eliminate her. They will undoubtedly succeed in their task, but projections indicate that the human organization known as Cerberus have taken steps to prepare for such an eventuality as the Commander's death. 

 

So for a another chance to make progress in its study, it will make an alteration. Not much, just a little speck laid into the corpse as it lays smoldering in a crater. 

 

Just a simple seed. But after all, even the smallest seed, if laid in the right place at the correct time, can alter the entire course of history by its mere presence.


	2. Intermission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So thanks to my mom, I now have to cope with a complete re-haul of what I had planned. Oh well.  
> This also marks the first of my weekly updates. I know this chapter and the one before it are pretty short, but I'm working on it.

**_Darkness_ **.

 

_“Report.”_

 

_“The subject is responding well to the reformat, and projections are looking up, with full activation in about six months. All onboard systems are showing mostly green. All said, for something that never should’ve worked, it’s amazing.”_

 

_“But?”_

 

_“There are complications with some of the revival protocols. Jera has concerns that it might be leftovers from whatever the Collectors did to the corpse.”_

 

_“Reaper technology is unusually persistent, isn’t it?Those study labs we had to shut down made several members of the management teams highly uneasy about continuing with the project. Add concerns about we had to do just to get the job done, and they get even more high-strung than usual.”_

 

_“With respect, I believe that has more to do with you than anything else.”_

 

_“And you may very well be right. Not that it’s any less amusing, however. What were you saying about the revival protocols?”_

 

“ _There have been repeated issues with the startup process, and it’s pushed our finish date back by at least a week now._ _Something’s interfering  with the base code, almost like it wants to change the entirety of her hard drives. It gets into the motherboard when we initiate consciousness routines and starts running and then we have to put her under again to root it out. ”_

 

_“Is it damaging her mainframe?”_

 

 _“...No, but we don’t know what it does. Sir, this has never been done before. She was_ dead _, and we brought her back as something completely new. If there is a single component that doesn’t work, or a single digit in the coding is misplaced, she could die at exactly the wrong moment. We simply can’t afford to settle for anything less than perfection here.”_

 

_“And you were so perfect yourself, Miranda.”_

 

_“Sir, please…”_

 

_“We may not be able to afford waking her up, but humanity cannot afford for her to remain dead, either. She is our one shot at stopping the Reapers, and every day she stays on that table is another day that we go without our champion and surrender the advantage to them. Wake her up.”_

 

**_Light_ **


	3. Waking Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been MONTHS since I updated, and I'm very sorry if anyone is even reading this. School, and work have combined with a lack of inspiration to make this hard for me. Still not completely satisfied with this, but here you go.

_ 01010010 01100101 01110110 01101001 01110110 01101001 01101110 01100111 _

_ … _

_ … _

_ Command key accepted. Final protocol checks……… _

 

_ Clean. Initiate consciousness state one. _

 

_ 5 _

_ 4 _

_ 3 _

_ 2 _

_ 1 _

_ RUN. _

 

The vids all portray resurrection as some sort of dramatic awakening, with someone jerking up, gasping and shaking. For Shepard though, the line is crossed as smoothly as waking up gently after a good nap. One moment asleep, the next, awake and aware. 

 

She’s lying on a table in a room that wouldn’t look out of place in some old medical horror vid from Joker’s collection. Stark white, and sterile enough to make a quarian proud. Probably some kind of laboratory, judging from the monitors and equipment on the other side of the room. There’s an assembler set into the ceiling directly above her, with status readouts projected next to the table. She can’t make heads or tails of them, aside from a few vital signs and such.

 

Of course, it’s not until she goes to sit up that she realizes what the  _ real _ issue is. Feeling frantically across her chest only confirms it. 

 

She doesn’t have a heartbeat.

 

Shepard starts hyperventilating and panicking. No heartbeat.  _ She has no heartbeat _ . What the ever-loving fuck? And instead of what should be a steady thud, reassuring her that she’s alive, there’s a deep hum permeating her whole body, almost like a motor. It’s soothing and maddening, and she  _ needs to find out out what it is _ .

 

Before she can start trying to tear herself open with her biotics to find the source of the hum and figure out what’s wrong with her, there’s a click and a whir as the door slides open.

 

“Commander Shepard, it’s good to see you.”

 

The speaker is middle aged, with his hair going grey at the temples, but he carries himself with a laid-back air of authority and hidden power. This man knows everything about you just from a look and can and will use it to make you do what he wants. His  _ eyes _ , though. Definitely cybernetic, but still blazing with the full force of the mind behind them. 

 

On top of all of that, he’s got a Cerberus logo on his shoulder.

 

Well  _ shit _ . Waking up in a freaky lab run by Cerberus of all people, and no clue exactly where she is. This is not a good day. The stranger raises a hand and smiles.

 

“Peace. I’m not here to harm you. Quite the opposite. We want you as healthy as can be. We need you.”

 

“Not sorry at all, but I just can't do that. I’m leaving, and if I have to do it over your corpse, all the better.”

 

An eyebrow goes up and his smile turns into a smirk. “You’re hardly in a position to refuse, Commander. After all, you’re not even dressed, much less able to tear me in half from across the room.”

 

Shepard glowers. She’s always had a daring streak and that sounded like a challenge if she ever heard one. She reaches for her biotics, and...something that sounds unsettlingly like an error tone sounds inside her head. She gets the distinct impression of a smooth mechanical voice saying  **Error. Biotic abilities disabled. Please install Element Zero module to enable biotics.**

 

No clothes, no biotics, trapped in a lab with terrorists…

  
_ Bad day _ . 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: So I fixed the binary string. No prizes for anyone who figures out what it is because google is amazing. Sorry, folks.


End file.
